New Orleans terrorist Shamsud-Din Jabbar’s eerie emails give clues as to why he cracked up

The Army veteran who rammed a truck into a crowd of New Year’s revelers in New Orleans had gone though a contentious divorce and an economy crisis before turning to terror. 

Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, flew an Isis flag as he ran over the crowd in the iconic French Quarter, killing 15 and injuring dozens with a rented truck filled with explosives. He died in a shootout with police. 

Jabbar seemed to crack after his second divorce in 2020, when his then-wife of three years Shaneen Chanti McDaniel got a restraining order against him. 

‘Time is of the essence. I can not afford the house payment. It is past due in excess of $27,000 and in danger of foreclosure if we delay settling the divorce,’ Jabbar wrote in an email to his then-wife’s lawyer in 2022.

Jabbar claimed he was broke at the time, telling the court he had a net monthly  income of about $7,500 but monthly expenses that were about $8,960. He also said the real estate company he had formed had lost more than $28,000 in the previous year and that he had taken on $16,000 in credit card debt.

The Texas native had successfully climbed the corporate ladder after being dishonorably charged from the military, where he served as a human-resources and information-technology specialist and spent 11 months in Afghanistan. 

He went on to study computer-information systems at Georgia State University, held a job at IT company Accenture and gave real estate a try before returning to Texas in 2018, starting a job as a cloud-consulting manager for Ernst & Young, an accounting company. 

Jabbar then started work as a ‘senior solutions specialist at Deloitte from 2021 until at least the past fall. According to a pay stub shown in court, he made the equivalent of nearly $125,000 a year.

Jabbar said he was unable to pay his mortgage while divorcing second wife Shaneen McDaniel (pictured)

Jabbar was dishonorably charged from the military, where he served as a human-resources and information-technology specialist and spent 11 months in Afghanistan

Jabbar had reportedly become increasingly devout in his Muslim religion in recent years

He had already gone through a divorce in 2012, with that ex-wife, Nakedra Charlee Marsh, getting the majority of the custody of their two children, who are now aged 20 and 15. 

At some point over the last years Jabbar converted to Islam and became increasingly devout, per some reports. 

Marsh’s current husband Dwayne Marsh told The New York Times Jabbar had been acting erratically in recent months, ‘being all crazy, cutting his hair.’ Marsh said he and his wife stopped allowing Jabbar’s two daughters to spend time with him as a result.

However, Jabbar’s brother Abdur Jabbar, 24, told the outlet he believed Jabbar had been ‘Muslim for most of his life.’

In videos posted to his Facebook account hours before the attack, he addressed his family as he ‘pledged allegiance to ISIS.’

Jabbar set an out-of-office message on December 1 saying he would return to work on January 1. 

Jabbar used the electric vehicle, which had an ISIS flag attached, to kill at least 15 people in New Orleans

Suspect Jabbar is said to have made a series of videos that are being reviewed by law enforcement

In his internal profile page at the company, seen by The Wall Street Journal, he wrote about his hobbies of hunting and prayer, sharing quotes from the Quran. 

‘Indeed, the righteous will drink from a cup whose mixture is of Kafur, A spring of which the servants of Allah will drink,’ an excerpt on his profile read. ‘They will make it gush forth in force. They fulfill vows and fear a Day whose evil will be widespread.’

‘We are shocked to learn of reports today that the individual identified as a suspect had any association with our firm. The named individual served in a staff-level role since being hired in 2021,’ Deloitte said in a statement. 

‘Like everyone, we are outraged by this shameful and senseless act of violence and are doing all we can to assist authorities in their investigation.’

President Joe Biden said Wednesday evening that the FBI found videos that Jabbar  had posted to social media hours before the attack in which he said he was inspired by the Islamic State group and expressed a desire to kill.

The rampage turned festive Bourbon Street into a macabre mayhem of maimed victims, bloodied bodies and pedestrians fleeing for safety inside nightclubs and restaurants. In addition to the dead, dozens of people were hurt. A college football playoff game at the nearby Superdome was postponed until Thursday.